


friends like me and you

by somethingdifferent



Category: Stoker (2013)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Uncle/Niece Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:18:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wears humanity like a well-made suit. India is both grateful and disgusted that only she can see the stitching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	friends like me and you

> _if you're never sorry _   
>  _ then you can't be forgiven_   
>  _ if you're not forgiven_   
>  _ then you can't be forgotten_   
>  _ if you're not forgotten_   
>  _ then you can live forever_   
>  _ if you live forever_   
>  _ then you'll begin to dream_   
>  _ of death_
> 
> REGINA SPEKTOR

 

 

 

He buys her a piano when they get to New York. He doesn't make a big show of it; rather, India comes home from work one day to find the structure taking up space in the apartment's living room. It's the only piece of furniture either of them have bought for the place, most of it having come from her father's meticulous preparation for his brother. India doesn't smile, barely glances at Charlie as he leans back on the bench, his arm draped lazily across the lid.

"Do you like it?" he asks.

She smooths her fingers against the white keys. The surface is devoid of dust, dirt. Anything unsavory.

"I love it," she replies, and presses her hand down.

 

 

 

Charlie is charismatic. There is no other word for it, though India often wishes there was.

He charms mostly everyone he meets, at work parties, at restaurants, at stores in the city. He introduces himself to the other secretaries in the office as her roommate, to waiters as her older brother come to visit his baby sister in the city, to sales clerks as a slightly indulgent boyfriend. He steps neatly and efficiently past the truth, plays jump rope around people's expectations. They all smile, all of them, and see exactly what he has painted.

India knows the reason, with her uncle's hand around her elbow, her shoulder, her waist. Charlie is little more than cleans hands and nice eyes and a projection of the audience's fantasies. He is half a person, in her father's sunglasses and clothing selected carefully from a magazine. He wears humanity like a well-made suit.

India is both grateful and disgusted that only she can see the stitching.

 

 

 

He sketches her sitting in the kitchen in the morning before he goes to work. India eats her breakfast, though he doesn't. Charlie, for his part, hardly ever eats, and hardly ever seems hungry. He is, she knows, for some things. For his few obscure tastes. For blood. For her.

"Would you ever want to travel?" she asks. She's curious. He had written about going so many different places, but he must have known she would never believe them.

"I don't know," he says, his hand now and again going sharp to create the lovely and angular crosshatch of her hair. "I think I might like to see Florence someday."

His hand curves, and a dark curl of hair forms over her cheek, the line long and straight as a dagger. For a moment, when he looks up, he seems like he may swallow her whole.

 

 

 

India is sitting at the piano bench when he comes back. His shadow is all dark against the light coming from the hallway. For a second, standing there over the body, he looks inhuman. Monstrous. When his hand reaches for his hip, he pauses, and she can see his eyes flash as he glances up at her.

"India?"

She shakes her head. "Not right now." Charlie shrugs, undoing the belt from its loops.

India doesn't start to play until she can hear the crunch of broken bone.

 

 

 

"Do you think my mother knows where we are?"

Charlie pauses over the piano; she can see his shoulders tense. India sips her iced tea blithely, and waits.

"I should hope not," he says, his fingers flickering over the keys as he begins to play.

India thinks of her childhood home, the screen door and winding staircase and swinging lights in the basement. She wonders if the bullet is still lodged in the wall of her mother's bedroom, a shot aimed perfect and pristine just next to Charlie's neck.

She stands, abandoning her glass for the moment, and crosses the distance to the piano. She climbs onto the top as gracefully as she can manage, her dark hair swinging in its ponytail. Beneath her, Charlie continues to play, a melody she doesn't know, though his hands are sure and precise. Practiced. He never once glances up to watch her.

As if reading her mind, Charlie speaks. "This is one of my own," he tells her, his voice low and confiding. "I've dabbled a bit in composing."

India doesn't reply, merely unfolds her legs underneath her and rests them beside his hands, the sharp points of her high heels clicking against the keys. The sound they make is cacophonous, a deep thrum at her right and a high twinkle at her left. It's very nearly unnerving, though her face remains as impassive as ever.

Charlie's hands finally still, the last note humming through the air until he takes his foot from the pedal and allows it to fade. He finally looks up, his eyes all large and black and intent. India slides forward to the edge of the lid, allowing her legs to fall open wider.

He says nothing, only stands and very carefully moves the piano bench back. One of his hands reaches, darts out like a snake or some other poisonous creature, and wraps itself around her white ankle.

 

 

 

She hasn't forgiven him for killing her father. To be fair, he never asks her to. Simply runs his fingers through her hair and falls asleep and trusts that he will not wake with a knife lodged in his chest. He knows as well as she that the time to kill him has long since passed. Now, to pull the trigger on him would be one and the same as putting a bullet through the roof of her own mouth.

"You and I," he says, tracing the line of her collarbone. His is the only touch she will accept, and vice versa. "We were made for this. It's in our blood."

She exhales, lets her breath flutter out until a lock of hair falls from her face, slipping along her shoulder. Charlie snatches it up with his fingers, folds it back behind her ear. India turns to him, her neck craned to the side to watch his eyes as they track the movement of her pulse in her neck.

"You and me," he says, and smiles.

 

 

 

 


End file.
